Ludwig Wittgenstein suggests that "A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes". The idea for this dialogue comes from a conversation that Michael Peters and Morwenna Griffiths had at the Philosophy of Education of Great Britain annual meeting at the University of Oxford, 2011. It was sparked by an…

Student engagement and making community happen is a policy manoeuvre that shapes the political subjectivity of the undergraduate student In Australia, making community happen as a practice of student engagement is described as one of the major challenges for policy and practice in research-led universities (Krause, 2005). Current efforts to meet…

This article takes a parsimonious conception of a developed State operating under a minimalist conception of democracy and asks whether such a State must fully resource any tertiary (post-compulsory) education for its citizens A key public policy barrier to arguing an absolute obligation for the State to resource any tertiary education is…

We analyse the electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) in higher education policy and practice.While evangelical accounts of the ePortfolio celebrate its power as a new eLearning technology,we argue that it allows the mutually-reinforcing couple of neoliberalism and the enterprising self to function in ways in which individual difference can be…

The present article investigates the rhythm of study as described by Giorgio Agamben in "The idea of study", present in Idea of prose. In this short treatise, Agamben presents Melville's scrivener Bartleby as the exemplary embodiment of study. Bartleby's paradigmatic status, according to Agamben's interpretation, does,…

Colleges and universities exist within a political arena where external demands for accountability materialize within a market-driven environment. As a result, government agencies pressure colleges and universities to rely on assessment and transparent reporting to become more market-driven assuming that the competition within the market, led by…

There is a new myth of the heterogeneous that is reducing the concept of humanity to a sinful enlightenment. In this article I investigate the contribution that a renewed understanding of liberal arts education might offer for the idea of a humanist education and for the concept of humanity; and this at a time when not only the concept of humanity…

With the tertiary education mantra of creativity, critical thinking and innovation in mind, we consider the critical-creativity of error. Taking the university to model social orthography, or "correct writing", according to the norms of disciplines, we consider the role of error in the classroom. Looked at another way, error questions…

In this article I explore the pedagogical value of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's philosophical concepts for helping make an "event" of thought, with a view towards fostering deep learning in Chinese students' learning theory and criticism in a second language. Paying attention to the qualitative role of bodies, humour and…

Participation in service-learning courses has always been considered a part of the informal education in tertiary education worldwide. Originating from the assumption that service-learning courses increase students' civic engagement and bridge the gap between knowledge and practice, service-learning courses have gradually acquired the status…

This study was conducted to address the concept of higher education curricula and its practice from an ecological perspective. First, the significance of ecology is investigated based on two streams of thought; the ecological concept of the university proposed by Ronald Barnett; and the text, "The Three Ecologies" authored by the Italian…

This paper explores the concept of subjectivity from the perspective of a nonnative-English-speaking teacher educator at a Midwestern university in the USA. It begins with a literature review on the role subjectivity plays in education. It argues that acknowledging the existence of subjectivity allows us to investigate its enabling and disabling…

R. S. Peters never explicitly talks about wisdom as being an aim of education. He does, however, in numerous places, emphasize that education is of the whole person and that, whatever else it might be about, it involves the development of knowledge and understanding. Being educated, he claims, is incompatible with being narrowly specialized.…

The main point of this article is that more credence should be given in teacher education to performative dimensions of teaching. I agree with David Carr (1999) that the requisite capabilities are probably best learned in actual schools. I employ Turnbull's (2000) conception of performativity, which speaks of tacit cultural learning.…

Paul Hager and I worked on a large number of research projects and publications throughout the 1990s. The focus of this work was on developing a competency-based approach to professional education and assessment. I review this work and its impact over the years. Notwithstanding the fact that most professional associations today have a competency…